Court Archives

Landrecht

This term concerns this authority before which the nobility had its place of jurisdiction. The holdings of the so-called "älteren Landrechts", which reach from about the middle of the 16th Century until 1782, include 1516 cardboard boxes in total and were sorted alphabetically by families and places. In the course of the judicial reform by Joseph II the competences of the Landrecht (which now is being stored under the title "jüngeres Landrecht") were extended; it then became Gentry Court of first instance, as well as Civil Court Authority for all owners of Gülten, the instance in case of conflicts with tax authorities concerning sovereign’s feuds, with monasteries, with convents, with sovereign towns and market-towns, as well as when conflicts between subjects and seignories were concerned. Special series of the Landrecht are formed by testaments according to the Landrecht, marriage contracts and deeds of donation from 1543-1850, as well as 14 protocols concerning the Landrecht.

Appellation Court, Higher Regional Court Graz

The Appellation Court, which is seated in Klagenfurt, and out of which very rich material (among other things, 218 volumes of council- criminal protocols) has been preserved, was founded as appellate court in 1782 and replaced by the Higher Regional Court in 1850. From the Higher Regional Court Graz, which was superordinated to the district courts in Graz, Cilli and to the Leoben administrative district office, there exist status reports from 1940 to 1944, single personal files from the lower Styrian judicial officers from the time of World War II, judiciary administration files from 1945 to 1955, files of the British occupying power, files of the denazification and rehabilitation of the judicial staff.

Regional and District Courts

The holding of the Regional Court for Criminal Matters which includes, among other things, the criminal files Municipality of Graz from 1867-1899 (as pre-files), as well as single penal files from 1867-1899, only starts growing richer in 1914. These files are made accessible via indices of names and registers, with the years 1937-1947 also accessible via an archival data base. Within the material of the Regional Civil Law Court Graz, mainly probate- and civil law issues from 1851.1897, insolvency-and settlement files from 1966-1990, files of the accrual commission at the regional court, as well as holdings that were taken over by the commercial court can be found.
Files of the age cohorts 1926-1947 from the Leoben Regional Court (District Court) for Criminal Matters, other files concerning insolvency- and settlement from 1923-1930 and 1966/67 from the local Regional Civil Law Court, further files concerning the administration of justice from the time of World War II and files from the Leoben Commercial Court and the Conciliation Office can be found in the archive.
In 1850, District Courts which were taking over lower jurisdiction from the seignories, as well as archival material necessary for transaction were installed. Within their rich holdings (such as desertions, orphan files, contracts, criminal files, minor crimes etc.) a special weight is laid on the land registers and the appending document collections.
Succeeding the Urbare, real land registers were created in the sovereign towns and market-towns at about 1730 and after 1768 in the remaining seignories with a parallel distribution of one Urbarnummer (Urbar-number) to each real estate. These old land registers, which are called Land Register I, are thus ordered by seignories and Urbarnummern (Urbar-numbers). At around 1810/20 most seignories started to lead new land registers (Land registers II), which after 1848 were taken over, in most cases, by the district courts for further utilization. Thus, Land registers II are arranged by district courts and, subsequently, by seignories and Urbar-numbers, which were kept in the first instance. Additionally, Land register I and II have been made available via finding aids. After 1871 new land registers (III and IV) were finally installed by the district courts, which are primarily ordered by district courts, further by land register-communities and then by property number. Until the reorganisation to electronic data processing of the cadastre, all volumes can be found in the Provincial Archive.

Landtafel

This index of aristocratic and church manors was started in 1730 and is subdivided into several series: The first one, the so-called “Landtafel I” was completed in 1810. The Landtafel-series II, which ranges until 1886, was completed with the missing debt sheet; within the following series III (until 1912) all single real estates were provided with property numbers. The Landtafel found its end with the series IV, which was transmitted into the cadastre bit by bit in the second half of the 20th Century.